1963 demonstrations in Iran

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(Redirected from
5 June 1963, demonstrations in Iran
)
15 Khordad incident
Part of the Iranian Revolution
People of Tehran in the demonstrations with pictures of Ruhollah Khomeini in their hands.
Date5 June 1963
Location
Tehran and Qom, Iran
Resulted inProtests suppressed
Parties
  • Imperial Iranian Army

The demonstrations of June 5 and 6, also called the events of June 1963 or (using the

Shia) religious opposition to the Shah, and Khomeini as a major political and religious leader.[5] Fifteen years later, Khomeini was to lead the Iranian Revolution which overthrew the Shah and the Pahlavi dynasty and established the Islamic Republic of Iran
.

Background

Shah
's government

In 1963,

Norooz celebrations for the Iranian year 1342 (which fell on March 21, 1963) be canceled as a sign of protest against government policies.[9][7]

Events

Khomeini's sermon and arrest

Picture believed to be of Khomeini's arrest in 1963

On the afternoon of June 3, 1963,

Ashoura, Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feyziyeh School in which he drew parallels between the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and the Shah. He denounced the Shah as a "wretched, miserable man", and warned him that if he did not change his ways the day would come when the people would offer up thanks for his departure from the country.[10] In Tehran, a Muharram march of Khomeini supporters estimated at 100,000 marched past the Shah's palace, chanting "Death to the Dictator, death to the dictator! God save you, Khomeini! Death to the bloodthirsty enemy!"[11]

Two days later at three o'clock in the morning, security men and commandos descended on Khomeini's home in Qom and arrested him. They hastily transferred him to the

Qasr Prison in Tehran.[7]

Uprising

Protesters carrying the body of one of the victims

As dawn broke on June 5, the news of his arrest spread first through Qom and then to other cities. In Qom, Tehran,

Gholam Ali Oveisi, to move into the city and crush the demonstrations. The following day, protest groups took to the street in smaller numbers and were confronted by tanks and "soldiers in combat gear with shoot-to-kill orders".[12] The village of Pishva near Varamin became famous during the uprising. Several hundred villagers from Pishva began marching to Tehran, shouting "Khomeini or Death". They were stopped at a railroad bridge by soldiers who opened fire with machine guns when the villagers refused to disperse and attacked the soldiers "with whatever they had". Whether "tens or hundreds" were killed is "unclear".[12] It was not until six days later that order was fully restored.[10]

According to journalist Baqer Moin, police files indicate 320 people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including 30 leading clerics, were arrested on June 5. The files also list 380 people as killed or wounded in the uprising, not including those who did not go to hospital "for fear of arrest", or who were taken to the morgue or buried by security forces.[12]

Release of Khomeini

Then Prime Minister Asadollah Alam was one of the supporters of arrest of Khomeini.

Hardliners in the regime, such Prime Minister Asadollah Alam and SAVAK head Nematollah Nassiri, favored execution of Khomeini, as one responsible for the riots, and less-violent strikes and protests continued in bazaars and elsewhere. Fateme Pakravan – wife of Hassan Pakravan, chief of SAVAK – says in her memoirs that her husband saved Khomeini's life in 1963. Pakravan felt that his execution would anger the common people of Iran. He presented his argument to the Shah. Once he had convinced the Shah to allow him to find a way out, he called on Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, one of the senior religious leaders of Iran, and asked for his help. Shariatmadari suggested that Khomeini be declared a Marja. So, other Marjas made a religious decree which was taken by Pakravan and Seyyed Jalal Tehrani to the Shah.[13] Pakravan's saving of Khomeini's life cost him his own. After the revolution when he was given a death sentence, a personal contact of Pakravan with close ties to Khomeini went to seek his pardon and reminded Khomeini that Pakravan had saved his life, to which Khomeini replied "he should not have."

After nineteen days in the Qasr Prison, Khomeini was moved first to the Eshratabad military base and then to a house in the Davoodiyeh section of Tehran where he was kept under surveillance. He was released on April 7, 1964, and returned to Qom.[10]

After the revolution

The date of 15 Khordad is widely noted throughout the Islamic Republic of Iran. Among other places, the intersection known as

Khomeini
died twenty-six years later in 1989, on the eve of 15 Khordad.

References

  1. ^ Rahnema, Ali (February 20, 2013) [December 15, 2008]. "JAMʿIYAT-E MOʾTALEFA-YE ESLĀMI i. Hayʾathā-ye Moʾtalefa-ye Eslāmi 1963-79". Encyclopædia Iranica. Fasc. 5. Vol. XIV. New York City: Bibliotheca Persica Press. pp. 483–500. Retrieved March 15, 2016. ...the initial organization and mobilization of the demonstrations that occurred in Tehran after the arrest of Khomeini on 5 June 1963, was the work of the Coalition...
  2. ISBN 9781137578259
    . The Freedom Movement participated actively in the 1963 uprising, instigated by Khomeini. The leading and younger members of the movement were imprisoned after the event.
  3. ^ Hosseini, Mir M. "The 15 Khordad Uprising". The Iranian History Article. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  4. OCLC 255085717
    .
  5. Bio.
    Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  6. ISBN 978-1-86064-128-2
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-20095-0
    .
  8. ISBN 978-1-86064-626-3
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-4381-3236-5
    .
  10. ^ a b c "History of Iran: Ayatollah Khomeini".
  11. OCLC 255085717
    .
  12. ^
    OCLC 255085717
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-932-88519-7
    .

External links

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